


Prelude to Being Spotted by a Russian Spy Satellite

by sadlikeknives



Category: The Authority
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 19:40:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlikeknives/pseuds/sadlikeknives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Midnighter has had a brilliant idea and tries to convince Apollo, and the vagaries of an interposthuman relationship are pondered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prelude to Being Spotted by a Russian Spy Satellite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smirnoffmule](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smirnoffmule/gifts).



Every day, Midnighter has to mentally hit the 'ignore' button about a thousand times. Most of the time, the computers in his head provide most prominently the most likely scenario and adapt it as conditions change. When he's not actually in a fight, that's a sort of low-level background noise, something he's so used to that he doesn't have to consciously deal with it, but Jennifer Sparks never enters a room but that his enhancements immediately start suggesting he start running for his life. _Now._ There would be sirens and flashing lights if this wasn't all happening inside his skull.

It's interesting, how the computers adapt, really. At first they hadn't known what to make of Jenny, then they'd suggested countermeasures, and now they skip all that, acknowledge that she is Jenny fucking Sparks, and tell him to get out if he values his miserable life. Sometimes they tell him to take Apollo with him, if, say, her attention is elsewhere and he might have a little extra time. So he has to ignore that. Fear of Jenny is a healthy emotion, really, but the last thing he needs is the computers doing their version of gibbering hysterically at him when Jenny has tea to share or information that might keep them alive in a few minutes to impart.

They gibber hysterically about the Doctor, too, but that's entirely different.

And then there's Apollo.

Apollo's always been his partner, his teammate, his other half. On the day he woke up with no idea who he'd been before, he knew Apollo. Or at least, that he belonged with Apollo. They were built to complement each other, to work well together. The rest, Midnighter likes to tell himself, is all them.

The enhancements never really quantified Apollo as a 'threat,' not the way someone holding a gun on him, most posthumans, and Diet Coke (he's never really understood that one) are threats, but there was, at first, the potential for him to be a threat. The enhancements ever so helpfully showed him where the weak points were, where to attack if he ever had to.

So eventually, Midnighter decided the hell with that and started trying to figure out how to train them to stop doing that. He knew they could learn, it was just a matter of _making_ them. It took him a while, but eventually...eventually he was able to hammer home to the computers in his brain that Apollo was not and was never going to be a threat. Apollo's the only thing in the world he can look at and never see crosshairs. It's not something that matters to anyone but him, because how his abilities work are not something he's stupid enough to talk about. Someone might be able to counter them, for one thing. For another, it would upset people to know he sees them as targets, and there are a lot of people who don't need to be any more intimidated by him than they already are. When his teammates tip over from 'healthy respect' into 'fearing for their lives,' that's a problem. And, if he's honest with himself, and probably most importantly, he doesn't really want Apollo to know he _ever_ saw him in the crosshairs.

The enhancements get it now, though. They get that Apollo is not a threat, that the potential for Apollo hurting him is zero. That the potential for Apollo dropping him to a messy death is zero. There are corollaries. Apollo could catch him (Apollo will always catch him); he could call a door (but he wouldn't have to, because Apollo will catch him--unless they're in battle and Apollo's a little busy, when all bets are off anyway because doing their fucking jobs comes above everything else). But the corollaries don't even matter, because: Apollo is not going to drop him.

Which is something you wouldn't think he'd have to remind Apollo of, but there's a first time for everything.

They were already naked and halfway to sex when Midnighter broached the subject, and Apollo balked. It wasn't the reaction he'd been hoping for, but he'd been more than half expecting it and, as always, had his strategy lined up and ready to go.

"It'll work."

"But--"

"It'll work. I've run the scenario." Apollo gave him a look. He didn't like when Midnighter did that with regards to sex, but in this case, he'd figured his partner needed a little reassurance. "The numbers are sound." Unspoken went: and it will be _awesome_. He figured that was implied by the concept itself.

A little awkward, but: awesome. Apollo knew it. He just had to let himself be talked into it. And that was what Midnighter was here for. "I've got a spot. There are no flight plans in the area, there's low cloud cover. And you know you want to."

"I never said that."

It was Midnighter's turn to give him a look. "You didn't have to." Time to switch tacks. "It's nothing we haven't done before."

"Floating. Floating we have done." Apollo eyed him thoughtfully. "You're not an adrenaline junkie usually." This was true. It might be surprising to outsiders, but inside the posthuman community everyone knew it: if you were going to make it in this life, you couldn't be looking for a rush. That way lay an unpleasant death. They were just people dong their job...it was just that their jobs involved leather and spandex instead of business suits and saving the world instead of entering data into a computer.

"It's not about adrenaline." It was about trust. He knew Apollo wasn't going to drop him. He knew that Apollo, with all that worldshaker strength pressed against his, relatively speaking, fragile-as-tissue paper body, was never going to hurt him. Apollo _didn't_. Apollo could never quite trust himself, because he could never be one hundred percent certain, as Midnighter was, that he wasn't going to slip up and, say, break Midnighter's femur. He could never put faith in himself that way. And it wasn't just that Apollo couldn't run the numbers. The minute Apollo let his guard down and let himself relax, that was when something stupid was bound to happen. It drove Midnighter crazy, he hated it, he knew Apollo hated it, but it was part of the price of what they were. But sometimes they just had to say 'fuck it' and do something a little bit crazy. "Come on, Apollo." Midnighter licked along his lover's jaw and murmured in his ear, "Don't you want to join the Mile High Club?"

Apollo laughed. "All right. All right. But when you fall I'm not going to catch you." Lies.

"I'm not worried." He grabbed Apollo's wrist and, smiling, pulled him along with him. "Door."


End file.
